'Aviation sector showed surprising resilience in tough times'

New Delhi, Sep 11 (PTI) Global aviation industry has
shown "surprising resilience" to terrorism, pandemics and
natural disasters, and quickly adapted to the situations
mitigating the impact of these crises, a study has shown.
While, the 9/11 terror attacks and the global banking
crisis were the only two events that hit the industry hard,
the others like Gulf Wars, swine flu and volcanic eruptions
did not have much impact on it and the industry was able to
recoup itself soon thereafter.
"The analysis shows that global airline capacity has
grown on average 3.1 per cent per year since 1979, and that
air travel is largely immune to regionalised events such as
natural disasters, conflicts and fuel price spikes," UK-based
aviation intelligence organisation, OAG Aviation, said.
The industry has remained "mostly immune to all but the
9/11 World Trade Center attacks and the Global Banking
crisis," it said in its 'World Crisis Analysis Report'
released recently.
"In fact, in the vast majority of crises, there was a
negligible impact in global airline capacity, and at a
regional level capacity dropped less than 4 per cent and
recovered within three months."
The analysis, which calculated the impact that events
such as terrorism, pandemics and natural disasters have had on
global airline capacity over the past 30 years, showed that
the 2001 World Trade Center attacks and the 2008-09 global
banking crisis were "the only two events since 1979 that
caused significant decreases in global air capacity".
This decline averaged a three and nine per cent drop in
capacity and recovering within 36 months and 24 months
respectively, it showed.
The analysis has "shown how quickly the aviation industry
responds and adapts in the face of almost any disaster, which
is reassuring news for world markets and the ancillary
industries that depend on aviation," said Peter von Moltke,
CEO of UBM Aviation which owns OAG aviation.
"Informed by sound historical data and analytics that
provide a reliable picture of how external factors affect
passenger demand, airlines are able to quickly adjust their
flight capacities based on market needs, thus mitigating the
impact of crises," von Moltke said.
Between 1979 and September 11, 2001, world airline
capacity steadily rose by an average of 5 per cent or 94
million seats annually. The rate declined to 2.6 per cent or
81 million seats after the 9/11 attacks, the study showed.
Regionalised events like the Gulf wars, swine flu and
volcanic eruptions caused on average less than 4 per cent drop
in regional airline capacity that recovered within three
months or less, with a negligible impact on global capacity.
The continued growth in air capacity was driven mainly by
Brazil, Russia, India, Indonesia, Middle East and China, where
growth of the middle class and personal wealth contributed to
increased air travel demand.
"Difficult lessons learned from past tragedies have been
taken to heart and put to good use by the aviation industry,
which is poised to continue growing for the foreseeable
future," Mario Hardy, UBM Aviation's Vice President Asia
Pacific, said.